page_title: Luís de Camões
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Luís de Camões / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of Luís de Camões, Lisbon, Portugal.
context_page_description: Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas. His collection of poetry The Parnasum of Luís de Camões was lost in his lifetime. The influence of his masterpiece Os Lusíadas is so profound that Portuguese is sometimes called the "language of Camões".
context_section_description: Many details concerning the life of Camões remain unknown, but he is thought to have been born around 1524. Luís Vaz de Camões was the only child of Simão Vaz de Camões and wife Ana de Sá de Macedo. His birthplace is disputed. Lisbon the capital where he died, Coimbra where he studied and Alenquer are frequently presented as his birthplace, based on interpretations of Lusiadas, which mentioned Alenquer several times, and the biographical poem (157) below.
  
  “No mundo poucos anos, e cansados, vivi, cheios de vil miséria dura;
  foi-me tão cedo a luz do dia escura, que não vi cinco lustros acabados.
  
  Corri terras e mares apartados buscando à vida algum remédio ou cura;
  mas aquilo que, enfim, não quer ventura, não o alcançam trabalhos arriscados.
  
  Criou-me Portugal na verde e cara
  pátria minha Alenquer; mas ar corruto
  que neste meu terreno vaso tinha,
  
  me fez manjar de peixes em ti, bruto
  mar, que bates na Abássia fera e avara,
  tão longe da ditosa pátria minha!”,
  
  Rendered in English,
  
  “In this world only some few, tired years I lived, full of vile and hard misery;
  a dark light of day came to me so early, that I had not even been 25 years old.
  
  I traversed far-flung lands and seas seeking some medicine or cure to life;
  but that which, in the end, doesn't beget any luck, risky jobs do not reach.
  
  Portugal created me in
  my green and dear homeland Alenquer; but the corrupted air
  of this land in which I had planted,
  
  it made me now eat fish in you, rough sea,
  which strikes wild and mean on the Abassia,
  so far from my blessed homeland!“
  
  Even with this biographic poem stating that his homeland is Alenquer, there are still interests disputing his birth place. His mother Ana de Sá was also from Alenquer and also related to the famous humanist Damião de Gois, also from Alenquer.
  Constância has a museum about him where he was in jail for a time, for which they built a statue of him. It can be found in the town, but it’s not said in the Constância that it was his homeland.
  The Camões family was originally Galician, which then passed to the northern Portuguese region of Chaves near Galicia. At an early age, his father Simão Vaz left his family to pursue personal riches in India, only to die in Goa in the following years. His mother later remarried. His mother was from Alenquer, daughter of Jorge de Macedo, and sister in law of Rui Dias de Gois from Alenquer.
  Camões lived a semi-privileged life and was educated by Dominicans and Jesuits. For a period, due to his familial relations he attended the University of Coimbra, although records do not show him registered (he participated in courses in the Humanities). His uncle, Bento de Camões, is credited with this education, owing to his position as Prior at the Monastery of Santa Cruz and Chancellor at the University of Coimbra.
  He frequently had access to exclusive literature, including classical Greek, Roman and Latin works;  he read Latin and Italian, and wrote poetry in Spanish.
  Camões, as his love of poetry can attest, was a romantic and idealist. It was rumored that he fell in love with Catherine of Ataíde, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and also Princess Maria, sister of John III of Portugal. It is also likely that an indiscreet allusion to the king in his play El-Rei Seleuco, as well as these other incidents, may have played a part in his exile from Lisbon in 1548. He traveled to the Ribatejo where he stayed in the company of friends who sheltered and fed him. He stayed in the province for about six months.
  He enlisted in the overseas militia, and traveled to Ceuta in the fall of 1549. During a battle with the Moors, he lost the sight in his right eye. He returned to Lisbon in 1551, a changed man, living a bohemian lifestyle. In 1552, during the religious festival of Corpus Christi, in the Largo do Rossio, he injured Gonçalo Borges, a member of the Royal Stables. Camões was imprisoned. His mother pleaded for his release, visiting royal ministers and the Borges family for a pardon. Released, Camões was ordered to pay 4,000 réis and serve three years in the militia in the Orient.
  He depar
caption: Monument to Luís de Camões, Lisbon
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